42137 - Formula E Porsche 99X Electric

[Gray Gear]

1 hour ago, Gumalca said:

There are holes on every surface.

That sounded very much like it to me, but maybe I was too heated in the moment. Yes, Technic has some gaps here and there. But small gaps will also appear on creator models once you stop building boring brick on brick and make some accurate angles yourself.

The Lambo posted above as an example for smooth round system bodywork has gaps too, because the MOCer tried to recreate the original Car. He did well, but he had to accept some gaps.

If you only build with 90 degree angles and don't try any angles you won't have any gaps. In technic too:

But look at that C-pillar. Special angle, with a gap.

My point is: System cars try to get away with premade angled bricks and slopes to avoid gaps. Doing this for the whole car will leave a car without holes, but shapes that are far from accurate. Most creator cars stay small, so inaccuracies and lost details are excused by small scale. But only using standard building techniques will never get you an accurate representation of the real car.

Bigger is better if you want to make a model as accurate as possible, but going bigger is also a lot more difficult. Building Brick on brick and never making any angles yourself isn't going to cut it. You need to create angles yourself, and while you can try to keep the gaps small, they will be unavoidable. For Technic and System.

 

Edited October 11, 2021 by Gray Gear

[Pato Sentado]

There are 3 ways to do a Lego car:

- 8stud wide system bricks (Speed Champions), my favourite.

- Scale modelling approach, such as Creator Expert Mustang, VW van or Fiat 500

- Technic Supercars. In this case I understand the most important feature is the technical one, I mean the moving parts, such as fake engine, gearbox, differentials, suspension...

Each one has advantages, limitations and priorities, and I think each one must stress that.

If you want recognizable but playable cars, go Speed Champions. If you want scale modelling, go Creator Expert, but Technic must be... Technical, not?

 

 

 

 

 

[kbalage]

14 hours ago, Gray Gear said:

If creating a more accurate car with creator is so easy, why is there basically nobody building large scale then?

Because an 1:8 supercar would be several times heavier and would require significantly more pieces using System bricks. Stability can also be a concern, a mixed approach could be the way to go.

You seem to have a very firm pro-Technic opinion which is of course your choice, but did you actually every build a recent Creator Expert car? I suggest to take a look at ECTO-1. It is fairly big, and although it has mostly flat surfaces it has some very neat building techniques for body shaping here and there. And from a functionality standpoint it beats single-handedly many Technic cars which tells a lot about the direction of Technic recently. 

As always not everything is black and white. Technic gives us big panels and easier large scale building, but lacks fine details, it's mostly limited by the shape of panel fairings for angled surfaces and will inevitably have holes and gaps. System is very good at small details, have a much bigger part selection but it requires more parts for the same scale, builds are heavier and structural rigidity is not as easy feat to achieve. Replicating bigger angled surfaces might be also a challenge, although it's not impossible - check out the rear of the Titanic's hull, it's amazingly complex and it's huge!

[noahtheb]

1 hour ago, kbalage said:

Because an 1:8 supercar would be several times heavier and would require significantly more pieces using System bricks. Stability can also be a concern, a mixed approach could be the way to go.

You seem to have a very firm pro-Technic opinion which is of course your choice, but did you actually every build a recent Creator Expert car? I suggest to take a look at ECTO-1. It is fairly big, and although it has mostly flat surfaces it has some very neat building techniques for body shaping here and there. And from a functionality standpoint it beats single-handedly many Technic cars which tells a lot about the direction of Technic recently. 

As always not everything is black and white. Technic gives us big panels and easier large scale building, but lacks fine details, it's mostly limited by the shape of panel fairings for angled surfaces and will inevitably have holes and gaps. System is very good at small details, have a much bigger part selection but it requires more parts for the same scale, builds are heavier and structural rigidity is not as easy feat to achieve. Replicating bigger angled surfaces might be also a challenge, although it's not impossible - check out the rear of the Titanic's hull, it's amazingly complex and it's huge!

Well said. I think System and Technic are meant to work together and benefit from each other, not be classified as certain groups that cannot mix.

[Rebel_Lego]

1 hour ago, noahtheb said:

Well said. I think System and Technic are meant to work together and benefit from each other, not be classified as certain groups that cannot mix.

I think 42078 demonstrates that well.

About the Porsche, if it has a pull back motor it's not for me.

[Gray Gear]

@kbalage I am not pro technic bricks or pro system bricks. I use both in my MOCs, and I appreachiate the details one can achive with system.

But I think the idea of creator cars having better bodywork is just plain wrong. It depends on what you want in a car model. If you want a build that has no holes and you don't care how accurate it is to the real car then creator cars are for you.

But if you want a car with accurate proportions you have to go large scale. And since creating accurate angles and large curved surfaces just works so much better with technic, using system only will always look worse. Some builds can work with technic only, but I think combining the strengths of technic and system bricks is key.

[kbalage]

2 hours ago, Gray Gear said:

But I think the idea of creator cars having better bodywork is just plain wrong. It depends on what you want in a car model. If you want a build that has no holes and you don't care how accurate it is to the real car then creator cars are for you.

Building with Technic is also an abstraction, a different one with different part limitations. Although you have larger smooth panels, but you are limited to those and if you want anything else you can start to put beams on flex axles and use similar workarounds, or you can start to add details with System pieces. You previously said that Creator builders need new dedicated pieces for every new surface, well the same goes for Technic, otherwise we wouldn't get new fender pieces every year. I don't think one building technique is better or worse than the other, they simply provide different aesthetics. But declaring that one will "always look worse" is simply a short-sighted approach. 

[Gray Gear]

28 minutes ago, kbalage said:

But declaring that one will "always look worse" is simply a short-sighted approach. 

Limiting yourself to system only for the sake of it it, even though there might be a better solution using technic, is a bad idea. To what extent you want to mix Technic and system is your choice. Praised creator cars like the mentioned Porsche or the Ecto hace already started using a few Technic connectors and other Technic pieces, for details and for the bodywork.

Edited October 12, 2021 by Gray Gear

[sm1995]

 

2 hours ago, Gray Gear said:

@kbalage I am not pro technic bricks or pro system bricks. I use both in my MOCs, and I appreachiate the details one can achive with system.

But I think the idea of creator cars having better bodywork is just plain wrong. It depends on what you want in a car model. If you want a build that has no holes and you don't care how accurate it is to the real car then creator cars are for you.

But if you want a car with accurate proportions you have to go large scale. And since creating accurate angles and large curved surfaces just works so much better with technic, using system only will always look worse. Some builds can work with technic only, but I think combining the strengths of technic and system bricks is key.

While it's true that modern large technic panels allow for easier surfacing in large models, I completely disagree that it is better for capturing detail - quite the opposite actually. The larger the average piece, the more detail you lose in the model. Which is why most technic models abstract away fine details of cars into lines created by flex axles or even strategically placed gaps.. nothing wrong with that approach, but it certainly does not make it a better medium for scale modelling or creating accurate bodywork.

I believe you associate larger builds being almost exclusively technic, because that's the precedent that's been set so far. Creating large models with technic is highly advantageous for a multitude of reasons: reduced part count, reduced weight, reduced complexity between connections and rigidity to name a few... but that doesn't preclude it from being the only medium or even the best medium for creating complex, detailed surfaces. It makes it easier, for sure, but not better. In fact there are actually a number of gems out there that highlight how much better system is for capturing detail and creating more authentic looking models, here are a couple large scale models that are almost entire brick-built:

Spoiler

      

Credit goes to all the amazing MOCers that built these models. Take a look at the recent Titanic or the Space Shuttle set for more TLG examples too, as kblage pointed out!

On top of all that, don't forget that the only reason technic may be better for "large curved surfaces" is because they released specialized parts just for that purpose! Back in the day, when the 8448 was released, you wouldn't have been able to find a single large technic panel akin to what we build with these days... the argument of "system can only look good with specialized pieces" doesn't really have any ground to stand on, since you could argue that a majority of the panels we use today are indeed specialized pieces themselves! Look no further than the 1:8 wheel arches released with the UCS 911 ;)

While I have thoroughly enjoyed this spirited argument, maybe we should move this to a different topic or end it here, and not derail the intent of the original thread :)

 

[Gray Gear]

I am afraid this topic has been derailed already 

Those are some very nice MOCs. I think the plane is the most amazing because it actually breaks the mould. And it proves what I said above: When you go up in scale and have to care about specific angles, creator builds will start to have gaps too. This dude went through the effort of placing all the wings at a slight angle. Well done, looks great! But now there are gaps all around the wings. Oh no, the world will end. On a smaller creator MOC the wings would just have been straight, and there would have been no gaps.

Any brick that isn't a 2x4 2x2 brick is a specialized brick if you want it that way. That's what this system started with, even before LEGO even existed.

Comparing 90's technic to creator is pointless, because both themes have changed so much that they are nothing like their older counterparts. All the useful pieces creator has now also didn't exist.

My point was that creator is mostly living off pieces placed at 90° angles, while technic panels have to be placed in different angles to look good.

Anyways, I am tired of this discussion as it will lead nowhere. Yes, system alone can look good. Yes, technic alone can look good. But mixing both is what I prefer, and what I think is the best ways of doing things.

[Ngoc Nguyen]

So I was right. Front fenders are Corvette fenders in white. They are held up through pin holes left and right, and the rear top pin hole. 

Middle part in the front uses 3x13 curved panel in white.

There's a glimpse of a pullback motor in the back. 

[Ngoc Nguyen]

Also new 3x7 panel in white

[1gor]

1 hour ago, Ngoc Nguyen said:

There's a glimpse of a pullback motor in the back. 

On promobricks there was mentioned that Porsche is a pullback set.

Edited October 29, 2021 by 1gor

[LvdH]

1 hour ago, 1gor said:

On promobricks there was mentioned that Porsche is a pullback set.

I can definitely see part of the pullback motor, so they are correct.

[Gumalca]

Yes it looks like a pull back motor. But promobricks based their information on those same preliminary images, so it's not a cross confirmation of any facts. Still it's not an unlikely solution for an electric car.

[Void_S]

On 10/30/2021 at 12:21 AM, LvdH said:

I can definitely see part of the pullback motor, so they are correct.

Sorry for bumbing but I'm trying to build a sketch of this set using the leaked images and it looks having someting two of regual pullback motors at the rear axle, as its visible "side" is too close to the left edge of the machine, so it may be off-cenetered (to the left side) or just have twin motor giving the bigger and heavir set than regular "smaller" pullbacks released previosuly.

Plus it's whellbase seems to be 3-4 studs longer than Corvette / "unoffical Camaro" sets.

 

[2GodBDGlory]

3 hours ago, Void_S said:

Sorry for bumbing but I'm trying to build a sketch of this set using the leaked images and it looks having someting two of regual pullback motors at the rear axle, as its visible "side" is too close to the left edge of the machine, so it may be off-cenetered (to the left side) or just have twin motor giving the bigger and heavir set than regular "smaller" pullbacks released previosuly.

Plus it's whellbase seems to be 3-4 studs longer than Corvette / "unoffical Camaro" sets.

 

I think you might be right on that! It definitely looks off-center, and off-center enough to allow for another one beside it.

[mpj]

Really interesting new panels here!

 

Edited December 2, 2021 by mpj

[Gray Gear]

On 10/10/2021 at 2:48 PM, Gray Gear said:

Those front wheelarches can only look like $hit without a purpose-made piece, which will not happen.

I guess my prediction was correct,  to whoever said I can't say it before I have seen the final model 

[Jundis]

And we got new panels in black, noice!

[Void_S]

Damn, it really has NEW PANELS! I tried to build it using the existing ones and never realized how they managed to use them.. Now I see, such cheaters 

[Thirdwigg]

I also like the new panel, but any idea if they will match with anything like the new 71682 matches with 11946? 

[Zerobricks]

Seems the new panel is made at the same curve as the 5 stud high panels so it should match in radius at least. I imagine is as a 64394 panel with the lower back cut off.

[Thirdwigg]

4 minutes ago, Zerobricks said:

Seems the new panel is made at the same curve as the 5 stud high panels so it should match in radius at least. I imagine is as a 64394 panel with the lower back cut off.

Ah, I see.

[karmadrome]

Of the new panels there seem to be 2 in black and 2 in red, judging from the lifestyle images available.

Of all sets for 2022 so far, this one ist the best parts pack, I think.

Both the Mustang and the Porsche have an "AR" logo at the lower left corner of the box, so it seems you will get some Augmented Reality app to play with. Good move, Lego, make them kids play with their smartphones even more